Voice is more effective in smaller political entities because a person or small group contributes a larger fraction of the total political pressure. This increases effectiveness per unit cost, and reduces the need for the costly and slow development of pressure groups.

Exit (of the literal, jurisdiction-shifting sort) is more effective within a set of smaller political entities because the various costs of moving are when moves are more local. Accordingly, the support that exit gives to voice is strengthened.

Liberty is less impaired when coercion is less effective from a person’s point of view. Lower cost of exit (and, to a lesser extent greater effectiveness of voice) accomplish this. Slightly paradoxically, lower cost of exit increases the effectiveness of coercion from a community’s point of view because it offer individuals a highly effective alternative to disobedience.

One could even argue that granting seemingly un-libertarian powers to small political entities can increase, if not liberty in a technical sense, then at least the related value of broadening the range of options for an individual (family, etc.) to control the conditions of life. Expanded their powers can increase the diversity of communities, making possible social orders that could (but in practice would not) arise through contractual covenants. If I wish to raise children in an environment free of pornographic magazines, granting to small jurisdictions the power to control the contents of magazine racks would provide such environments, offering an option (by entrance, the converse of exit) that would not otherwise be available. And, of course, it would make this possible at a smaller cost to effective liberty than would a grant of the same power to The State (here presumed to be a much larger entity).

I’m not a libertarian myself, but I don’t really see the basis for am a priori libertarian critique of collective bargaining or of unions. No doubt a particular union could act badly, but that’s par for the course (a particular person or corporation can act badly too). The point is, it does seem like there are many, many cases where Exit enhances Voice, and that market relationships often display this dynamic. I just picked up the Hirschman today, so I’ll see what he says soon.

But I thought the libertarians do enthusiastically accept the idea of contractual obligations. And any time you enter (implicitly or explicitly) into a contract with a state or any social institution within the state, the terms may or may not include the right to exit or you may have the right but it’s difficult to exercise.

And the state may have a good reason to make exit difficult or impossible, because of the natural inclination of self-sufficient individuals to bail out – which destroys the system.

So, if you’re young, healthy and with a well-paying job (which is what ‘white male geek’ probably means), you just need to take it easy, graciously accept the limitations on your freedom and be glad that you are not old, sick and unemployed.

Rather, liberty is the state of being uncoerced by others. Libertarians seek to maximize liberty. Thus we talk about “exit” because no person (or group thereof, include corporations and the state) has the right to impose a relationship on any other. Justice demands that every peaceful human be able to “exit” every relationship except those he or she chose his or herself.

The consequences of exit are interesting to argue about, and perhaps even useful, but they are not the heart of the matter. The heart of it is the right to free association.

On a more personal level, let me make two observations about voice and exit that may also explain our tendancy to emphasize just exit. First, voice has not done diddly for us. We’ve protested your usurpations of our freedom bitterly for years, and we are irrelevant and marginalized as much now as ever. What has voice done for us? Pretty near zero, by appearances. By comparison, both the mainstream left and right have numerous successes in terms of getting the state to do what they want. (Much of which involves stealing my money and spending it in ways which I disapprove of, occasionally bitterly, without effect.)

Second: libertarianism appeals to men more than women, white people than minorities, and introverted systemic thinkers (aka geeks), more than extroverted people-loving touchy-feely types. That is, we’re a bunch of white male geeks. This is the demographic probably least likely to complain (use “voice”) about anything. Because (a) confronting people makes introverts uncomfortable, and (b) for white guys whining is social death.

I may regret this (I’ve always thought that libertarians differed only from doctrinaire Marxists in the degree of their self-delusion) but what do you actually mean by ‘serious competition’. And please an answer I can understand: preferably with examples. (What I am getting at here is the use of hte word ‘serious’: there is at least a realisation that not all competition is good; so how do we decide between the good and the bad?).

Her case was that they should vote Democratic (i.e., vote for Democrats).

Wait: does this mean libertarians are in favor of unions? Or only of there being plenty of other plausible work opportunities?

Monopolies aren’t as attentive they could be because they don’t have to be.

This is an innovation?

Add this to your comments that Hitchens writing is “grounded more in a sensibility than in a coherent view of politics” and I’d say you’re one step away from Donald Rumsfeld’s metaphysic of conceptual idealism.
Maybe I should have gone to grad school after all and gotten a degree in Air Castle engineering.